Unofficial news and tips about Google

January 23, 2007

Google's Spell Checker Included in All Search Services

Google's famous "did you mean...?" question that shows up on top of the search results if Google thinks you mispelled misspelled some words in your query can now be seen in each and every Google search service* (at least in the English version). You'll see it even if you search from this blog's search box.

This is definitely a good news because many people make spelling mistakes and it takes time to realize it and fix the errors manually. Of course, the implementation is not perfect as it relies on common misspellings.

For Google Maps, there's a custom implementation that corrects location names and addresses. Searching for [Montain Viw], you get: "did you mean: Mountain View, CA". Of course, a question mark would be a nice touch, as we're in the realm of grammar and punctuation.